venus is dead
by ilvidis
Summary: "there is bliss that hides the pain." For Writer of Worlds' "The Feels Hurt Contest"
1. in medias res

Roy is invited to the funeral.

He is unnaturally patient, but he waits with a slightly unsettling composure and a fake half-smile on his face. He holds a pretense of _I'm fine,_ when it's blatantly clear he is not.

Hours later, when everyone leaves, there is naught but him, the gravestone, and the book.

Roy sets it down carefully, propping it up against the granite. He straightens up and ignores the fact that maybe he started to love Robin at some point.

He smiles wryly before speaking. " _My friend, do you fly away now?_ "

A blur begins to form in his vision, yet he continues without pause. " _To a world that abhors you and I?_ "

The cardinal is forced to stop for a moment, as a hitch in his breath catches him off guard. He inhales and finishes. " _All that awaits you is a somber morrow. No matter where the winds may blow._ "

The sun gently dips below the treetops as Roy kneels to touch the top of the gravestone and allow his tears to fall.

"Goodbye."


	2. the glows of the past

Roy remembers there was a boy. Well, certainly not a boy, but probably not a man either.

Robin Procella was _someone_ , certainly. Of course everyone was someone, but he just happened to be someone who stuck out from the crowd.

Maybe it was his odd white hair that separated him from the psychedelically colored sea of people.

 _Or maybe it was—nope. Not thinking of that. Not even gonna start thinking about not thinking._

So instead of twisting a knife into his glassy heart, Roy tells himself that Robin just stuck out to him because of his silly white hair instead of his infinitely deep and warm brown eyes that he fell into and endlessly kind personality where he was so afraid of hurting anyone that he wouldn't even touch a—

 _Stop._ He tells himself sharply, as tears start to gather in the corners of his vision and his mind begins to run viciously fast circles.

So the redhead tells himself, "It's just the hair." And then angrily goes down into the basement of his home and runs on the treadmill until he is sweating and panting and sees spots in his vision.

He passes out promptly after, and for a few blissful hours he forgets about that swan-haired person and his stupid, damned eyes.


	3. a persistent memory (or two)

There are recollections that refuse to be forgotten, and they nag and disturb and scream at Roy Adustus and tear away at his heart with every passing day.

So in the dead of the night, facedown in his bed he thinks about how they became friends over their shared appreciations for reading and night skies and background music.

He remembers how they'd share books with each other on a myriad of subjects and stories and talk over the phone about this or that passage and that detail and how it correlates with another and that plot twist and on and on and on.

And he recalled every little nuance on how they'd sit on the library couches and share a pair of earbuds (with the volume ticked at precisely thirteen or twenty-seven if there was a library activity) curl up on adjacent seats (with ugly color schemes of olive and horrible purple) and listen to orchestral soundtracks for movies (they preferred The Lord of the Rings) or video games (usually Skyrim) or television shows (infrequently) and read books of poetry (they both loved LOVELESS) or science (usually books on astrology or ornithology) or dystopian love stories with action in the odd mix.

And sometimes Robin called at the ungodly time of 3:30 just to cry and vent about his alcoholic father and Roy would frown and try to comfort him and convince him to just keep on living life because _life is so beautiful, why would you want to waste it? Why would you want to leave?_

And in the end he's always left wondering _Why did you leave me?_

So facedown at 2 AM, Roy screams into his sheets and pillows and slams his fist into the headboard of his bedframe and asks again and again _WHY?_

And then he lifts up his head with tears streaming down his face and quietly staggers into the nearby bathroom and pull out the razor he uses to shave and seethes with frustration and endless questions of _why why why_ and tears at the inside of his upper left arm and forgets those memories and the levels of volume and his questions and there is just the sting and then the bliss and the edge of the razor and the sharp clarity of the cuts and the dulling of his anger and confusion and there is just the red of his blood and the newly forming scar and the bliss and he wants to feel that forever and forget and feel like he floats on clouds and his pains leave permanently.

But they don't, so he returns to the bathroom once a week to do it again and again and again, drowning himself in the blood and the freedom of the openness and the sting into happy forgetfulness.


	4. fortitudo

Roy is found on the floor of the bathroom with slits in his upper left arm and a vibrant pool that burns with disgust.

His mother finds him shivering in a fitful sleep, and she holds back her vomit and fear so she can disinfect his arm and staunch the bleeding. He wakes to find her holding him and crying and asking with shudders, _Why are you doing this to yourself?_

And he realizes that his answer is unsatisfactory but even so he tells her about how he made a friend and fell in love only for him to die on him. He tells her about how he finds solace in the pain.

It's only when she begins to hug him does he realize the harm he's done to himself and those around him.

He looks at his bandaged arm and sees it as a symbol that marks the beginning of his own healing.

* * *

Roy returns to to the grave a year later and leaves a bouquet of flowers and speaks aloud to himself and the stone. "Gone, but never forgotten."

He turns and leaves, the wound finally healed.

* * *

 **Sorry about the inbox spam I just felt like uploading it all at once and was impatient about it.**

 **Also I want to thank everyone involved in the betareading/proofreading/editing process and for listening to me complain about deadlines and rewrites of this.**

 **Update 12/31/2015: Sorry I forgot to wish everyone else good luck i feel really bad now.**


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